


smile for me

by hazamour



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Basically Pirate!Harry obsessing over Prince Louis' smile the creep, Blinded Horizons, M/M, Oneshot, Oxy, Prince of The Seven Seas, some baby Harry cuteness overload, some character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 20:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1660838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazamour/pseuds/hazamour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Harry takes out the picture and stares at its charred edges, and now the water damage. Most of the colours have faded, so that Harry can’t even make out the blue of the young prince’s eyes anymore, but even in all the confusion and fear and the shock of the day’s events, Harry still thinks that smile is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	smile for me

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a headcanon about the picture of Louis Harry saw when he was little and how he got a hold of it, as well as what happened to it. The characters, setting, and pretty much everything belongs to the wonderful Oxy and takes place in her Prince of the Seven Seas universe.
> 
> Thanks to her for letting me do this. :)

He’s six years old, pink-cheeked with holes in his shoes and green eyes too wide and bright for his face. He sits on his doorstep with his knobby knees pulled to his chest, humming to himself and absently drawing a kitty in the dirt with one pudgy finger. There’s a group of village girls clustered not too far away, all bickering and squealing over something in the center of the tight circle while Harry watches curiously.

He’s never really understood what was so great about girls. A bunch of older ladies had come into the bakery the other day and had cooed all over Harry while he sat wide-eyed on the counter as they pinched his cheeks and ruffled his curls, telling him how much of a “heartbreaker” and a “ladies man” he’d be one day. Harry looks at the group of young girls with their pigtails and too-high voices as they shriek exaggeratedly over something and doesn’t really see the appeal.

A familiar figure suddenly detaches itself from the crowd and marches toward Harry, her arms crossed and a little pout etched onto her face. Harry blinks up at her questioningly but she ignores him, so he reaches out to tug on her skirt as she tries to breeze past him into the house.

“What are they fighting about, Gems?” he chirps, not at all fazed by the annoyance on his sister’s face. Gemma likes to act all big and tough sometimes but Harry knows about her secret doll collection under their bed and how much she likes to cuddle at night.

“Jus’ some stupid picture,” she grumbles, pulling away from Harry’s tiny grip and stomping into the house before he can point out that she shouldn’t be using the “s” word because mum says it’s rude.

Harry turns his attention back to the still-arguing group of girls and tries to hear what they’re saying, but they’re too far away and their voices are all jumbled together as they all try to talk over each other (still doesn’t see the appeal), some of them resorting to shoving. Harry can’t fathom what could possibly get them all so worked up, but doesn’t have much more time to ponder it before he sees something small and white drift out from between the girls and flutter to the ground a little ways away from them.

Curious, Harry pushes himself to his feet and unsteadily toddles over to the mystery object (Gemma always teases him about his clumsiness, tells him he walks like a baby deer). He sees that it looks to be a piece of paper or a card of some sort and bends to pick it up, turning it over in his hands to find that it’s a picture. It’s of a little boy, maybe a little older than Harry, with crisp, clean clothes and caramel-coloured hair and big, bright blue eyes the colour of the sky. Harry’s not looking at his clothes or his hair or his eyes, however; he’s awestruck by the huge, gleaming smile the boy in the picture is wearing, so wide that it forces little crinkles to line the boy’s eyes. At the bottom of the picture “Prince Louis Tomlinson” is scrawled in fancy script.

Harry thinks Prince Louis is beautiful. Breathtaking and gorgeous and radiant and, there. He sees the appeal.

And Harry doesn’t want to be a “heartbreaker” or a “ladies man”. He wants to marry this boy.

**. o O o .**

Harry is eight years old and everything is red.

The flames, roaring behind, beside, all around him, heat searing his skin. The fire burning up his village is red. His clothes, three quick shots and a small body falling limply on top of him, Gemma’s blood is red. His mother, slumped on the doorstep, fingers reaching to protect herself. Red, red, red, red.

A group of men spot him, raise their guns and shout at him, spewing their hatred as they pull their triggers and the ground in front of him explodes into sharp clouds of rock and dirt. They are covered in blood. Red.

Harry runs.

**. o O o .**

When morning comes Harry emerges from the forest surrounding his home to find that there’s nothing left to even  _call_  home.

The whole village is destroyed, the houses charred black skeletons of themselves, a few fires still burning here and there. (There’s a larger fire burning at the other side of the village, and the smell that comes from it is horrid, and Harry doesn’t look at it.)

He’s standing where his house used to be, staring numbly at the single crumbling wall that managed to survive the blaze, at the ashes where his and Gemma’s bed was and a metal doorknob gleaming dully from the pile where the door to his mum’s room used to be. He kicks around in the ashes, as though looking for something but not seeing, his mind carefully blank. He finds his mum’s jewelry box and opens it (it’s still warm), finds three gems inside; blue, red, green. He stuffs them in his pocket and continues searching.

He stands in the center of the small square where he and his sister’s room was and refuses to look at the spot where the closet used to be, feels overwhelmingly sick for a moment before it’s gone and there’s nothing. He feels nothing. And then he sees it.

A little white rectangle atop a pile of ashes, the edges charred and soot smeared over the front, but he can still see the smile.

Harry picks it up, carefully brushes it clean, then puts it in his pocket and leaves.

**. o O o .**

Harry is fourteen years old and he is numb.

He doesn’t know where the last six years have gone. Just remembers gray and fog and rain. Never sunshine, never anything warm and happy and safe. He doesn’t know what makes this day so special. Why for so many years everything was dark and empty and numbingly blurry-gray, when on this day everything suddenly snaps sharply back into focus.

It’s when his arm is being pinned to a block of wood, a knife hovering above and poised to come swinging down, when he takes a sudden gasp of breath and it’s like waking up, only to find yourself in an even worse nightmare than before. He cries out, tries to wrench his skinny arm away from the man’s vice-like grip, when suddenly there’s a booming  _crack_  and he’s free.

Harry stumbles backwards and scrambles to safety beneath a merchant’s cart, eyes darting around wildly for more danger, mind racing. He sees a red-faced baker, knife clenched tight in hand and staring enraged at man standing a little ways away with a still-smoking gun pointed to the sky.

The man lowers the gun, tips his feathered hat to the baker, and Harry backs further into the shadows.

“Why, sir – if I may ask - were you trying to cut off that boy’s hand?” the man questions directly to the baker. The market has gone silent, everyone standing frozen and staring.

The baker suddenly jabs his knife in Harry’s direction, and he cringes away fearfully. “Because _that_  little maggot was trying to steal my bread, that’s why!” he snarls, knife glistening in the sunlight.

“Hm. Interesting.” The man’s eyes flick over to where Harry is cowering beneath the cart, and Harry freezes, wants desperately to run away but can’t force himself to move. Even when the man crooks a finger at him, beckoning. “Come here boy.”

When Harry still doesn’t move, another man who had been standing slightly behind the first suddenly stalks forward, reaching under the cart and grabbing Harry by the collar of his tattered shirt. He drags him out from the shadows while Harry fights weakly, grunting and whining like a scared animal trying to escape as he’s dropped in front of the man in the feathered hat.

Harry stares, trembling, as the man reaches out and grips Harry’s chin between two calloused fingers, tilting his head this way and that, black eyes evaluating. He makes a humming sound, turns to speak to the man who had pulled Harry from under the cart.

“Take him back to the ship. Give him some clothes, something to eat and drink. Don’t want him dropping dead before we even leave port.”

The angry baker starts yelling as soon as Harry is yanked to his feet and pulled by an arm away from the market, stumbling over his own feet and suddenly very aware of the gnawing ache in his stomach. The man in the feathered hat, with his black eyes and cold, hard voice, he can hear speaking in lower, more dangerous tones that make the hair stand up along the back of Harry’s neck as he is led quickly away.

**. o O o .**

Harry is fourteen years old and this man is named Captain Simon Cowell, supposedly the most notorious pirate to sail the seven seas, and Harry is so overwhelmed and confused that he just wants to crawl into the darkest, most secluded place he can find and never come out.

“What’s your name, boy?” Captain Cowell questions as Harry stands before his desk, picking at a scab on his elbow and averting his gaze to the ground. He’s afraid to speak, not sure what’s going on or what’s happening and he just wants to go home, but then he remembers that that isn’t possible and tears start pricking behind his eyes. Waking up into a nightmare indeed.

“Answer me, boy. It’s terribly impolite to ignore the queries of someone who, in case you have forgotten, just saved your life.” And the way he says it makes Harry think that if he doesn’t say anything now then this man will finish what the baker had started.

“H-Harry.” His voice is hoarse, cracked and ragged as though it hasn’t been used in years. (It hasn’t). “…Sir.”

The Captain nods as though pleased, though it’s difficult to tell with the blankness of his features. He stands suddenly, moves around the desk to stand in front of Harry, and he tries not to take a step back out of fear at the sudden proximity.

“Well Harry, I’m going to give you a choice. You can either leave this ship and go back to being a half-starved street rat afraid of his own shadow, or you can stay here, with me, and I’ll teach you everything I know. I’ll show you how to fight, protect yourself, how to conquer your fears. But most importantly, I’ll show you how to survive.”

Captain Cowell stares down at Harry expectantly, and Harry thinks of red, and he says, “Okay.”

**. o O o .**

He’s handed a set of linens and clothes and pushed into a room with four beds, three of them with the sheets rucked up and scattered belongings strewn around them, the fourth bare but for a single pillow and tucked into the furthest corner where a thin layer of dust coats the floor around it. Harry carefully places the sheets and clothing on top of the bed before slowly surveying the room, catching sight of a mirror beside one of the beds. Throat suddenly dry despite the water he’d been given earlier, he makes his way over to it.

He’s skinny, dangerously so, with pale, pasty skin smudged head to toe with a layer of dirt and grime. His curls, that were so bouncy and light the last he looked in a mirror all those years ago, are now limp and heavy atop his head. His eyes are by far the worst, though. They’re blank, haunted, with dark hollows set deep beneath them. Harry can look into his own eyes and see just how damaged he is, and he hates it.

He doesn’t want to be able to see it. He doesn’t want other people to be able to see it, see his weakness. He wants to seem blank like Captain Cowell. He wants to seem as blank as he feels. He wants people to look him in the eye and see nothing.

Harry’s hands are shaking now, but he wants to be strong, so he balls them up into fists and shoves them into his pockets. It’s a shock, then, when he feels something brush against his knuckles. He knows what it is, but he can’t fathom how it could be possible. Not after all these years.

He wraps his hand around the items in his pocket and pulls them out, uncurling his fist to reveal three coloured gems. He stares at them for a long moment, then reaches further into his other pocket and feels it – the smooth edge of small card.

Harry takes out the picture and stares at its charred edges, and now the water damage. Most of the colours have faded, so that Harry can’t even make out the blue of the young prince’s eyes anymore, but even in all the confusion and fear and the shock of the day’s events, Harry still thinks that smile is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

**. o O o .**

It’s only been four months since Harry suddenly went from street rat to pirate on the most notorious ship on the seven seas, but it’s been a grueling four months at that. Captain Cowell has been relentlessly “training” Harry, though not with guns and swords. No, the Captain believes that one should conquer their own fears before they can begin instilling it, and so Harry spends most of his nights trying not to think about how the Captain went about getting rid of Harry’s fear of spiders.

Harry’s never even fired a gun before, is only allowed to keep a knife tucked into his belt at all times, but he really wishes he had one right now. He’s fifteen years old and he’s never wanted to shoot anyone more than he does right now.

“I know you took it! Where is it?!” Nathan is rummaging around in the drawers by Harry’s bed, dumping their contents (which aren’t much) onto the floor while shouting accusations at Harry over his shoulder.

“I’m only going to say it one more time, Nathan.  _I didn’t take your bloody dagger_.” Harry hates Nathan. He would shoot him if he could. If he had gun. Maybe.

“Liar!” Nathan snarls. “I  _know_  you have it, and I’m going to find it!” He stands and goes to the bed, grabs at the sheets and pulls, and a spike of panic suddenly shoots through Harry when he reaches for the pillow.

“Stop!” But Nathan has already tossed the pillow behind him, and is now staring at the items hidden underneath it. Harry stops breathing, fingers frozen and reaching from his attempt to stop Nathan.

Nathan starts laughing.

“Wha- Oh my god, what is this? This is too good - oh god, this is  _too_  good!” He’s full-on cackling now, and Harry’s cheeks burn in mortification. “Is that a picture of the fucking Prince of England? Why do you even  _have_  that? Aww, does little Harry have a crush?  _Ha!_  He’s eight years old in that picture!”

Nathan reaches out, picks it up for a closer look, and suddenly Harry is  _enraged_.

“Don’t  _touch_  my  _things_!” He doesn’t think, just rips the knife from where it’s tucked into his belt and lunges. And suddenly Nathan is falling to the floor with a shout, clutching his bleeding side.

“He stabbed me! Help, I’m bleeding!” Nathan wails, and Harry looks down at the blood dripping down the edge of his knife and running down his knuckles, and he marvels at how red doesn’t seem as terrible as it used to.

Later, when Captain Cowell asks why Harry did it, he will shrug and say, “He deserved it.”

And the Captain will smile. He will promise to teach Harry how to shoot a gun the next day, and Harry will smile back.

**. o O o .**

Harry is sixteen years old and people are calling him “Captain” now.

He has his own crew, has his own ship, but now all he needs is a name for himself. The members of the  _Lionheart_  had quickly learned to stay out of his way, but that was only one ship. He wants all of England to know his name, and he wants them to fear it.

Harry learned a lot of things about himself during his time on the  _Lionheart_. He learned how to overcome his fears, to turn them into strengths. He had been so afraid in the beginning, jumping at anything that moved too fast, skittish and nervous. He cried too, sometimes. Nights when he was lying in bed and remembered Gemma’s arms around him, or the times when his mum would sing him a lullaby. Back then, he hadn’t known why those things were so violently taken from him. At eight years old he hadn’t ever even heard of anything called the “Catholic Massacre”. Not until Captain Cowell told him the truth.

And he had turned his fear into hatred. Hatred for the people that destroyed his childhood, his future, the lives of the people he loved as well as his own. He developed a hatred for the Crown and what it had done to him, how much it had damaged him. And he wanted them to know it.

Harry strolls along the ship’s deck, watching as his new crew members prepare to set sail from port. The feathered hat atop his head is brand new, the red and blue gems of his mum and Gemma gleaming from where he had them embedded into one corner. The green gem is still in his pocket, but he knows now what he’s going to do with it. He wants to make a memorial for his family, have it embedded into a tombstone for them, now that he can afford it.

He makes his way below deck, pushing the doors open to his new quarters. Captain Cowell had donated a portion of his book collection as well as his desk to Harry after his retirement, and now Harry runs his fingers atop its smooth wooden surface. He opens one of the drawers to find it empty, just waiting to be filled with notes and journals, then reaches into his pocket.

The edges of the picture flake off a bit when he isn’t careful with it now, and the colours have completely leaked out as well as a lot of the lines. He can just barely make out the young prince’s face now, the wide smile and crinkled eyes. He gently runs his fingers over it, remembering a time when he used to wave it around in his mum and sister’s faces and loudly proclaim that “I’m gonna marry him some day. You’ll see.” 

This is all he has, this picture. Prince Louis, the only exception to his hatred for the Crown, is all he has left of a time when he was still capable of love, and the memory of that feeling has Harry’s heartbeat quickening in his chest and tiny tendrils of warmth spreading through his frozen veins. Sometimes he thinks - no, he  _knows_  - that this pathetic infatuation for the son of the man that took away everything Harry held dear is the only semblance of humanity left in him. He hates it. He wants it gone, obliterated, destroyed - so that he never has to spend another night thinking about how absolutely  _breathtaking_  Prince Louis’ smile would look in person.

This picture is a symbol of his weakness. He should throw it out the window, burn it, tear it to shreds. But he knows he can’t.

With a scoff of disgust with himself, Harry drops the picture into the drawer and slams it closed, then makes his way back out on deck.

**. o O o .**

Harry is eighteen years old, and Louis is twenty, and that smile is even more beautiful when it’s for him.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: hazamour


End file.
